On the left is the OnePlus 9 Pro charging on the 50 watt OnePlus wireless charger. On the right is the iPhone 12 Pro Max charging with the 15W MagSafe charger.
Patrick Holland / CNET
One of the most persistent rumors for the next iPhone (some call it iPhone 13) is that Apple will discard the Lightning port entirely. And with the launch last year of MagSafe charging on the iPhone 12 series, it is not difficult to imagine a future in which we will rely solely on wireless charging to power our phone’s battery. An iPhone 12 in a MagSafe charger can go from 0 to 50% of the battery charge in an hour. This is hardly a replacement for the much faster charging you get with a Lightning cable and a wall charger.
THE new OnePlus 9 Pro may contain an answer to the enigma of the iPhone without a door. For weeks, OnePlus released the phone cameras, designed in partnership with Hasselblad, the legendary Scandinavian camera company. You would think that cameras would be the best resource, but they are not. Instead, it is the OnePlus 9 Pro’s ability to charge wirelessly at 50 watts that really stands out.
This means that you can go from an empty battery to a full one in about 45 minutes without connecting your phone. What’s more impressive is that this level of fast wireless charging comes on a phone that costs $ 969 (£ 829, which translates to approximately AU $ 1,490). To give you perspective, the $ 999 iPhone 12 Pro it is a 15 Watt MagSafe Charger. Imagine being able to charge your iPhone wirelessly with a 50-watt MagSafe charger instead of 15.
The OnePlus 9 Pro, like last year’s Asus ROG Phone 5 and OnePlus 8T, uses a two-cell battery that simultaneously charges both cells. To achieve this optimized wireless charging, you need the OnePlus Warp Charge 50 Wireless Charger for $ 70, which has two coils to charge each battery at 25 watts. The charging stand allows you to charge the 9 Pro in a vertical or horizontal position and has a built-in fan to prevent things from getting too hot.
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rumors of the iPhone 13 and what the next Apple phone needs
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If Apple ever completely removes the Lightning port from the iPhone, I realize that there would be more than just batteries and charging to consider. Like what would come in the real box to charge the phone? A low-power MagSafe charger? How much would an Apple 50 watt wireless charger cost? If the OnePlus charges $ 70, it’s easy to see Apple charging $ 99 or $ 129. Would this feature be available only on the “Pro” versions of the iPhone 13 or would it go beyond the line? Also, what replaces the data sharing that the Lightning port provides?
If Apple’s future is a portless iPhone with only MagSafe charging, then the OnePlus 9 Pro and its 50-watt wireless charger are welcome proof of concept for how it can work. This resolves perhaps the biggest concern that many of us would have, in addition to how much we would need to spend to replace our existing chargers. And if Apple keeps the Lightning port, the OnePlus 9 Pro shows that we should expect a lot more from the next MagSafe charging version.